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Notes -
I had quite the throwback culture war experience this past weekend. While at a family gathering, my dad was cornered by an in-law and quizzed about my “agnosticism”.
He was asked if he had led me to this lack of faith, and was then informed that it’s the patriarch’s responsibility to “get his family into heaven” – a neat little double-duty insult of both himself and me.
I tend to be a very laid-back guy in meatspace, but found myself livid. I’ve been in this family for close to a decade, and the sheer cowardice and arrogance of this exchange was breathtaking. To circle around to one of my direct family members instead of having the cajones to challenge me directly was ridiculous (and in hindsight, what I should have really expected from these people).
We’ve been existing in what I thought was a reasonable detente. As a victorious participant in the Atheism culture war, I’ve been kinda-sorta prepared to have these skirmishes with my wife’s catholic family for a long time. The unspoken agreement was that I go to church for holidays, let you splash water on my children, and don’t bring up anyone’s hypocrisy/the church’s corruption, rampant pedophilia/the inherent idiocy in believing in god.
In exchange, I get to stay balls deep in my excellent wife and should be left alone.
I’ll be the first to admit the excesses of Atheism’s victory laps and see how “live and let live” can slide down the slope into a children’s drag show. But this indirect exchange reminded me that when the culture war pendulum swings back, I should be prepared for the petty tyrants and fools on the religious right to reassert themselves. We’re already starting to see the tendrils of this, even if some of their forces have been replaced with rainbow-skinsuit churches across the US.
For Christian motteziens - No disrespect intended. I'm aware of the hypocrisy of my arrogance in this post, and it's intended to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek
This post is an interesting little mirror to this sub's CW leanings. Imagine if the positions were reversed with a left-leaning interlocutor instead of a right-leaning one. Say you told a story where they were making snide passive-aggressive remarks implying you were racist. The response you would have gotten would almost certainly be cheering alongside you. I highly doubt they would be as unanimous in their scorn, claiming this post breaks rules, that your previous compromises means you somehow deserve this, or that snide remark essentially saying "we're not your therapist, bro".
The fact that Christianity's cultural side is inextricably linked to the superstitious side is clearly causing some amount of cognitive dissonance. But instead of resolving it (either by severing the two sides, or by rejecting Christianity entirely if doing so is infeasible), this sub... tries to ignore it as much as possible. This sub pretends it doesn't exist, and then gets really conspicuously oversensitive whenever someone reminds them of it.
Well, now and then it comes up, but we have actually managed a detente here that the outside world has not: the atheists won't sneer at the Christians, and the Christians won't wag their fingers about Jesus and hell. (When that detente gets broken, as happened recently, you are likely to get modded.) Nobody wants this place to become either a platform for evangelizing or /r/atheism.
That Christianity gets treated with the kid gloves here is a blatant double-standard. The modding happens because the Christians don't even bother trying to defend their superstitions since they know they'll get trounced, so instead they fight with oversensitive interpretations of the rules (declaring anodyne statements to be "unnecessarily antagonistic", "bad faith", stuff like that).
This forum should be open grounds to challenge any view.
When you try to claim that Christianity gets treated with kid gloves, you get bland shoulder shrugs and some upvotes. When you point out that actually, it's atheism that is treated with kid gloves, you get banned. The modding happens because atheists don't even bother trying to defend their absolute bollocks metaphysics since they know they'll get trounced, so instead they fight with oversensitive interpretations of the rules (declaring that actually responding to people's questions is "obnoxious" and "unnecessarily antagonistic").
If anything in this forum is 'sacred' in the language of Robin Hanson, it is atheism. It shall not mix with the profane things, like arguments about the culture war.
As a Very Religious Person I think you're a bit off-base here. Your parody post was much less well-written than the original, in addition to secretly being a parody. "consider the idea that methodological constraints actually are a metaphysical theory, or further implying that shoes are atheists."--I don't even know what this means or where this comes from.
If it had been either higher quality or more up-front about its nature you would have been fine.
My biggest mistake was overestimating both the philosophical knowledge and the Internet Atheist meme history knowledge of the community. (The former bit is from world famous philosopher Rene Girard. The latter bit came from the Internet Atheism Wars, and I suppose it would be vastly more well-recognized ten to fifteen years ago. I guess I'm getting old now.)
...but, of course, that's not the reason that was given for the modding! And perhaps even more importantly, it's completely inapplicable to this modding. What is your hypothesis for why I'm off-base this time? Was it less well-written than the original? Was it secret that it was a parody? Did I make reference to something that completely confused you and made you have no idea where it came from? What's the problem now?
Am I missing something? You're just referring to the modding where a mod called out your characterization of the previous action, right? I'd hardly called that modding at all.
Maybe I'm wrong, and @Amadan can correct me if I'm wrong. But I read:
And I thought that the implication was that there was something wrong with this comment.
Do you think that the only problem was my "characterization" of the previous action? If so, that would be pretty incredible, in my mind, because not to put to fine a point on it, I disagree with their chosen characterization of the previous action. I have also been told that it will not be "relitigated". Point of fact is that it has actually never been "litigated" a first time! There was just a ban, and then nothing. We could just continue on having different characterizations of the past. We could have a discussion to clarify and come to a reasonably joint characterization. What I think is not really something we can do is simply to declare that any characterization I give that is not simply quoting something that I disagree with is a bannable offense because I supposedly "know perfectly well" that my own opinion has magically been declared wrong without discussion, such that even having a different opinion is "lying" about it.
I mean, it is within @Amadan's prerogative to simply declare that my perspective is bannable without discussion, but I think that should be explicitly stated as such. And it should be abundantly clear that this is what is happening, rather than that I am "lying" about something I supposedly "know perfectly well".
EDIT: In fact, it would be perfectly useful if this were declared. Because right now, I think it's apparent that there is total confusion as to what Amadan is going for. Like I said:
It would be helpful to know that these are not the problem, if that is the case. For example, is it bannable to adjust wording in someone's argument in order to demonstrate that the form of an argument can be applied to a different set of particulars, implying a conclusion that is different from the expectation of one's interlocutor? If so, it would be extremely valuable to know this. I was under the impression that such argumentative method has been well-established since Plato's time, so if it is unacceptable here, I just want a clear statement, so that I know what to avoid in the future. Right now, I have absolutely no bloody clue what the actual problem is.
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Right there in the link that you helpfully provided is the reason why you were banned, along with proof that what I accused you of doing when I banned you was correct. So you know perfectly well that the reason why you were banned is not what you're claiming.
"Pointing out that actually, it's atheism that is treated with kid gloves" is not something you get banned for. Antagonism, disingenuously rewording someone else's post without being open about what you're doing, and posting in blatant bad faith (or, not to put too fine a point on it, lying about why you were banned), on the other hand...
I suspect you posted this message just so you could get banned and add that to your list of injustices. You've been more or less well-behaved since that last ban, and you've posted a few AAQCs, which suggests maybe I should cut you some slack, despite my reflex to just give you what you want. But if you're really looking for another ban to whine about, do this again.
I have been around long enough to know that 95% of the time, "It's holistic," means, "It's bullshit." Interestingly, I've even seen this attempted in peer review. Thankfully, the Editor in Chief didn't buy it and told the academic janny to do a better job. He needed something real, specific, and actionable.
You wrote:
Point me to one. Make it something specific. Something real. Something actionable. Something that can actually be put into practice to improve future posting. Without something, the most likely conclusion is, "Atheism is the sacred at The Motte."
Notice that last time, your complaint was that I didn't make it obvious enough that I was riffing off something. [EDIT for appropriate bold:] This time, that is exceedingly obvious. Last time, you complained about me responding to follow-on questions. This time, I have said nothing else up to this point. Give me something real. Something actual. Something actionable.
This is neither a court of law nor an academic journal, and we're not relitigating your last ban. You can conclude whatsoever you please; people claim lots of things.
I asked about this time. But just like when you mod comments, you sometimes make notes about how there is parsimony with prior comments by the offender... when we "litigate" this modding, it would be helpful if the mod comments are parsimonious with prior mod comments.
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I actually remember your post. You got banned because you took someone else's post, inverted a bunch of the language without telling people, posted it as your own, and then started sneering in the replies. There was a moderator post detailing most of that among the replies.
I remember you, too.
My version brought data.
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How has Christianity been treated with kid gloves here?
Their interpretations of the rules don't matter. The mods' do.
You're allowed to challenge Christianity, like any other view. But "LOL Christians and their Invisible Sky Fairy" will be treated the same as low-effort sneering at any other view.
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At the risk of getting modded for "waging the culture war", go ahead, challenge away. Show us what you've got.
That's not how it really works. The atheist view is typically a response to Christian arguments, not a pre-emptive strike declaring 100% certainty that no gods exist.
Well my, my, isn't that a convenient restatement of the position? "Oh yeah I totally could take you with one hand tied behind my back, but I have to go water my hydrangeas right now!"
Isn't that "fighting with oversensitive interpretations of the rules", Benny-ben?
No, this is a blatant strawman of my position. I'm saying I'm not a gnostic atheist here.
Come now.
Aw, but you make me want to ruffle your hair and pinch your adorable chubby cheeks, little Ben with your "My dad can take your dad!" attitude!
Sorry. I'm being annoying. Apologies for that.
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Don't do that.
Fair point. But when someone comes in all pigeon-pouter chest about "my philosophy can wipe the floor with yours", then collapses back into "no, your philosophy has gotta start it first, else I'm not justified in throwing the first punch!", it eggs me on to be Condescending Auntie.
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You seem to be confusing atheist with agnostic.
There's no such thing as a dictionary-definition Atheist. Nobody can prove god doesn't exist, when those who say He does can shift His definition to fit reality.
An Atheist is an agnostic who's 99% certain that the common conceptions of any God made by humans is not real.
By that definition, atheists are perfectly orthodox religious believers, or have you really never heard of the way of negation/apophatic theology? Usually summed up as "We cannot say what God is, only what God is not".
Ironically, in view of the comment about angeology, our friend Pseudo-Dionysius was one of those:
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According to most progressives there's no such thing as "wokism" or "the deep state" either but that doesn't mean you don't know exactly what im talking about.
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The two words can be used interchangeably in some cases. Most atheists are agnostic by design, while most Christians are gnostic. It's usually Christians making the first claims.
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